“Ordered, hmm?” she asked in a silky voice. She rubbed against the hardness growing under her belly and smiled.
“Yeah, ordered,” he repeated in a gruff voice, the scent of earthy vanilla and man growing stronger. “You like it when I boss you around. Makes you wet.” He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her tighter against his erection. “Besides, you went down on Ava's man. You're going to have to make peace with that shrew.” Sheridan blushed. “Oh, God. I did. I had sex with Gunnar,” she whispered, completely embarrassed, while her beast preened. “She's going to kill me when she finds out.”
He had the nerve to laugh. “Honey, we've all done Tersch. Trust me. Fucking him was the only thing saving him from having a coronary because we wouldn't let him randomly kill the bad guys.” He paused and took her cheeks between his palms.
“Everything will work out for the best, baby. Because with you by my side, I'll never have to worry about being alone again.”
She smiled. “Don't you mean with 'us' by your side, future father of a baby Circ?”
His light gray eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I'm not crying. And I'm not pussying out just because I'm totally, completely in love with you. Tell Tersch I cried, and I'll spank you for a week.”
Sheridan kissed him again and crossed her fingers behind her back.
She thought about it for a few days, but in the end, the spanking was totally worth it.
A week later, Ava glanced around the parking lot of the small diner to make sure she hadn't been followed. She leaned forward and rested her forearms on the ledge of the Jeep's open window. “Do you have to go?” Eyes a mirror image of her own regarded her with resignation. “You know I do.
But don't worry. I had a long talk with Gunnar about you. You're set, sweetheart.”
“Don't 'sweetheart' me, Grayson Alexander Belle,” Ava snapped. “Grandma's been a pain in the ass about my mate, and I'm tired of waiting. Now's my time, and if you said anything to screw up my chances with that boy, I'm going to gut you, shave your vain head bald, string you up by your balls, and—” The bastard had the nerve to laugh. Ava decided then and there not to speak to her brother again for the next fifty years.
“I love when you get all cranky. No wonder Gunnar's half in love with you.”
“Yeah, right.” Ava's heart pounded. Her beast moaned to be let free and find the male that she needed.
It had been so long since her beast had tasted a true fight. That night in the woods a week ago wasn't nearly enough to sate the animal inside Ava begging for another bite of freedom. But it had been a thing of beauty to change, to see Gunnar's gorgeous berserker killing the enemy Circs left and right through eyes that could track in the night. Such a strong mate, a worthy male to respect and love.
If only the stubborn bastard would stop avoiding her.
The minute he'd laid eyes on her in her beastly form, after he'd pulled her from the men she'd been battling, he'd treated her like poison ivy. Staying far, far away.
Grayson gave her a shit-eating grin. “Fucker spent that night at the Islander warning me away from you. For some reason, he was convinced I was doing my sister. Uh, ew.”
She flushed. She'd hinted to Gunnar that she might be having an affair with one of the psychics working security around the mansion. Hell, he never gave her the time of day, yet he screwed anything Circ, to include Sheridan! Boy, did she have a bone to pick with the new little pregnant lady. Though she'd known Gunnar needed the release he found with his team, she didn't have to like it. And by God, all that nonsense was coming to an end.
Ava contained a snarl and said to her brother, “I don't know where Gunnar gets his odd ideas. But I do know that if you're going to leave, you need to do it now.
I can't cover for you anymore. Sheridan knows you're Circ, but she promised not to tell. The shielding exercises we taught her are helping her hide the truth from Fallon and Olivia. You know, it's a good thing you look like Dad.”
“And you look like Mom.” He grinned. With a white father and black mother, the two had never been mistaken for siblings, until they changed. Then they looked almost identical, with the exception of their obvious gender differences.
Ava continued, “The other psychics newly assigned to the place will think you went back to DC. Tell Lonnie I said hi when you see him.” Lonnie, what the family had always called Admiral Geoffrey London—good friend and faithful companion to her grandmother for more years than Ava had been alive.
“Will do.” Grayson frowned.
“What?”
“I don't know. I've been getting weird vibes from Lonnie lately. Probably the stress of the new platoon. Psychic soldiers and sailors can be a pain in the ass. They make the Circs look like prima donnas. Oh, that's right, they are prima donnas.” Grayson smirked. “Your Gunnar is a high-maintenance dude. You sure you want him?”
Ava smiled through her teeth. For two solid years, she'd waited and watched her wild man. The time had come to finally claim him as hers. Now, since they'd conquered Montaña, she just had to battle Tersch's inner demons. She had no doubt they'd soon find the worm Ricardo had worked for. She could feel it in her bones.
Her Circ bones.
She flashed her canines at her brother and blinked at him through eyes that now saw in shades of heat, to better ferret out prey. “Trust me, Brother. Your sister is going hunting, and I won't quit until I've bagged my man.” One way or the other, Frederik Gunnar Tersch, your ass is mine.
